Sunday, February 05, 2006

learning.

So lessons are restarting tomorrow, and I am, as always, desperately eager to learn. It could all prove to be pointless if it turns out I've done badly on my exams, but thats the risk I take I suppose. I could have done a module that was 100% coursework this semester.... but I think not somehow. That might be a legitimate test of my mathematical skills- and we wouldn't want that!

I'm not a big fan of faith schools. I think in a society that is multicultural, it is imperative that we learn to at least get along with others, and we are going to find it difficult to do so if we have no idea what Islam is. I'm happy for parents to teach what they like, but I kind of feel that at school we should be taught about all religons- the knowledge I gained was cursory at best, but at least I have a passing knowledge of other religons, rather than treating them as some kind of evil thing. This is also why I oppose single sex schools. Schooling is about more than learning just academic knowledge. It's actually vital towards building social skills, learning how to interact with other human beings, in a controlled environment. If you go to a single sex school you are inevitably going to be a little weird towards the opposite one, because it is doubtful you have had a large amount of contact with them. So what if achievement is a little better in single sex schools? There is more to life than just economic success, something that is almost forgotten about in our very work orientated society- you can see in labour's dictacts that school is considered a tool for learning and that's it, and thats very blunt. There is far more to it than that. People meet friends who will stay with them for the rest of their lives- some even meet their lovers there. School is a vital piece of everyones life, and should be done right.